Page 40 of Reaper
"I'm too raw for you. The things I did to you... It's too rough. I don't know how to be gentle. I don't know how to turn off the violence. I don't belong in a world where you exist."
She reaches up and wraps her hands around the lapels of my shirt.
"Who asked you to be careful? When did I ask you to be gentle? When did I ask you to hold back?"
The question stops the breath in my throat.
"Wyatt, look at me." She jerks my shirt, forcing my gaze up. Her eyes are blazing, completely devoid of fear. "You think I want gentle? You think I want to go back to a world where I have to negotiate every interaction, where I have to filter everything I say and do?"
She steps into my space, forcing me back against the wall.
"When you put your hands on me, I don't have to think. I don't have to plan. I just get to let go." She runs her hands up my chest, her fingers curling over my shoulders. "You take me apart, and it is the safest I have ever felt in my entire life. I don't want a filter. I don't want you to hold back."
"I'll hurt you." The words tear out of me, a final, desperate defense.
"You'll never hurt me." Her voice is absolute steel. "You kill the things that try to hurt me. And then you take me into the dark and you make me feel like a woman who doesn't have to be afraid of anything."
She rises onto her toes and crushes her mouth against mine.
The kiss is an explosion. The last barricade in my mind shatters, collapsing under the sheer, undeniable weight of her acceptance.
I grab her waist, spinning her around and pin her against the heavy wooden door. She gasps, arching into me, her hands tangling in my hair.
I kiss her with all the uncivilized hunger I've been trying to suppress. I don't hold back. I don't soften the edges. I let the feral, predatory need take over completely, biting at her lower lip, my hands sliding under her shirt to grip the warm, bare skin of her hips.
She moans, a reckless, desperate sound that acts like an accelerant on a wildfire.
She pulls my shirt over my head, her nails scraping lightly against my chest. I lift her, her legs wrapping around my waist instantly, just like in the cave. I carry her across the room and drop her onto the mattress.
I follow her down, pinning her wrists to the sheets.
"No filter," I growl against her throat.
"None." She arches up, seeking my mouth. "Give me exactly what you are."
I do.
I take her apart in the dim light of the motel room. It's rough, it's possessive, and it's entirely consuming.
Every time I push the boundary, every time I think the intensity will be too much, she meets me there, demanding more. She unravels under me, completely uninhibited, completely safe in the center of the storm.
When the climax hits, it tears a ragged, broken shout from my lungs. I collapse against her, burying my face in the curve of her neck, my heart hammering against her ribs.
She wraps her arms around my back, holding me anchor-tight.
I turn my head, pressing a kiss to her damp skin. The isolation of the last four years, the crushing weight of the ghost I thought I had to be—it's gone. Burned away in the heat of her absolute acceptance.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are heavy, satisfied, and clear.
"I'm not leaving." The words are a vow.
She smiles, her fingers tracing the scar on my jaw. "I know."
THIRTEEN
The Ghost
WYATT
